Big IDEA

Engaging students with or without technology

24 April 2006

One brave soul on the EDTECH list challenged the provocative maxim “Technology will never replace teachers–but, those who use technology will replace those who do not.” I disagree with that statement, too, for several reasons.

The first problem is the imprecise language. What technology, and what type of use? I suspect that the person responsible for that quote really meant to say that teachers who engage students will replace those who do not. After all, when we think back to the non-technology-using teachers we loved, what made them special was the way they engaged us and challenged us to do our best. They may have treated us as colleagues rather than “clients,” or forced us to step outside of our comfort zone. These teachers didn’t need technology to engage us; instead, they were master teachers who understood the importance of the process of learning, while never losing sight of the learning objectives.

Technology can certainly help with student engagement, but teachers who don’t engage their students when technology is absent will not all of a sudden engage their students by just throwing technology into the mix. I’ll use PowerPoint as an example. How does using PowerPoint to show my 3×5 notecards to my students while I lecture help students learn? Is that more engaging than me lecturing and asking questions? How does forcing my students to blog without attempting to create some sense of relevance, ownership, connectedness and community help students learn?

Finally, it would be nice if we could find some system that could accurately and fairly evaluate teachers so we could get rid of the bad ones. The notion that teachers who don’t use technology will lose their jobs is just silly. And let’s just hope that teacher preparation programs don’t scare off those future master teachers who can engage their students without using technology. If that ever happens, it will be a sad day indeed.